By John Lee.
The Ministry of Oil has announced an opportunity to invest in a 100,000-bpd refinery at the Qayara field in Ninawa governorate.
In a statement, the Ministry said:
The execution is according to the methods of BOOT or BOO and according to the investment law of the refineries No.64 for the year 2007 and its amendments.
The products of the refinery must be environment friendly according to the international standards.
The tax breaks must be according to the investment law No.13 for the year 2006.
In accordance with the second amendment of the investment law No.64 for the year 2007. The subtraction on the crude oil price over the ship is (8%) “The subtraction must be more than 5$ and less than 10$ of the global price”.
The studies, planning and follow-up directorate in the ministry of oil have prepared the data portfolio of the refinery and the price of the data portfolio shall be (30) thousand dollars “nonrefundable”.
The closing date of selling data portfolios is at the end of the work hours of Sunday the 1st of April 2018.
–* The receipt of the documents from the companies which would like to invest in the above mentioned refinery must be to the end of the work hours of Sunday the 15th of May 2018.
The presentation of the documents will be to the Studies Planning & Follow-up Directorate directly in a closed envelop. Otherwise the documents will be rejected.
For further information please contact the E-mails (studies@oil.gov.iq) or (studies.oil@gmail.com).
(Source: Ministry of Oil)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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The owner and chief executive officer of an armored vehicle company was sentenced today to 70 months in prison for his role in orchestrating a scheme to defraud the United States by providing the U.S. Department of Defense with armored gun trucks that did not meet ballistic and blast protection requirements set out in the company’s contracts with the United States.
Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle of the Western District of Virginia, Special Agent in Charge Adam S. Lee of the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, Field Office and Special Agent in Charge Robert E. Craig Jr. of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s (DCIS) Mid-Atlantic Field Office made the announcement.
William Whyte, 72, of King City, Ontario, the owner and CEO of Armet Armored Vehicles of Danville, Virginia, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jackson L. Kiser of the Western District of Virginia, who also ordered Whyte to serve three years of supervised release following his prison sentence and to pay restitution in the amount of $2,019,454.36.
On Oct. 9, 2017, after a two-week trial, Whyte was found guilty of three counts of major fraud against the United States, three counts of wire fraud and three counts of criminal false claims.* Whyte was charged by an indictment in July 2012.
Evidence at trial demonstrated that Whyte executed a scheme to defraud the United States by providing armored gun trucks that were deliberately under-armored.* Armet contracted to provide armored gun trucks for use by the United States and its allies as part of the efforts to rebuild Iraq in 2005.
Despite providing armored gun trucks that did not meet contractual specifications, Whyte and his employees represented that the armored gun trucks were adequately armored in accordance with the contract, the evidence showed.* Armet was paid over $2 million over the course of the scheme, the evidence showed.
The case was investigated by the FBI and DCIS.* The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Caitlin Cottingham of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Carlton of the Western District of Virginia.
(Source: US Dept of Justice)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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By John Lee.
Iran is said to be negotiating a deal to import around 100,000 tonnes of wheat per month from Russia, enabling private millers it to increase flour exports to Iraq.
Iraq imports about 3 million tons of flour a year, almost half of its demand of 6.9 million tons a year.
According to a report from Reuters, private millers in Iran are not allowed to use domestic wheat for flour exports.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that Iranian flour millers are operating at 50 percent of capacity.
(Sources: Bloomberg, Reuters)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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By Jack Detsch for*Al-Monitor.*Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.
The*Trump administration’s budget proposal*for next fiscal year does not include peshmerga salaries even as the Pentagon aims to continue training the Kurdish force.
The Department of Defense had requested $365 million in stipends for the year that ends Sept. 30 but did not spend the money after negotiations to extend an expiring memorandum of understanding broke down in September. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had agreed to pay the peshmerga wages in October, but a US Inspector General report released earlier this month said the Kurdish fighters still hadn’t been paid
“Those documents do not specifically refer to training/stipends for the peshmerga,” Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told Al-Monitor in an email today. Lawmakers have yet to weigh in on the $716 billion Pentagon request for fiscal year 2019.
Instead, President Donald Trump’s budget request for the year starting Oct. 1 seeks $850 million to train and equip Iraqi troops with a focus on bolstering the Iraqi Security Forces with Ranger brigades. As part of that amount, the peshmerga force of about 150,000*could still be eligible for up to $290 million in so-called operational sustainment*funds aimed at preventing the Iraqi government from becoming more reliant on Iran and Russia, according to budget language.
The shift in focus by the United States*comes as the Iraqi Kurds have been marginalized by Baghdad following the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) controversial independence vote in September. As a result, US and peshmerga officials are at odds over how much assistance is actually getting through to Erbil since Baghdad has to sign off on any weapons shipments to the Kurdish troops.
“Right now, the Iraqis are stopping a lot of stuff,” said Michael Knights, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Though the Pentagon acknowledges that the peshmerga proved helpful to the US-backed coalition until the beginning of the Mosul fight in 2016, the Kurdish force has faced difficulties in assimilating US equipment, experts say, in part because the peshmerga relies on its own training structures and tactical formations. The US-led coalition said in December that 5,200 American advisers in Iraq had stopped advising the peshmerga as the Pentagon appears set to draw down its presence.
Over the past year, the United States also sold the Iraqi government nearly $300 million*worth of military equipment to outfit two infantry brigades with M-16 rifles, .50 caliber machine guns, up-armored Humvees and mine-resistant vehicles. That was cut down from an initial effort to outfit four peshmerga brigades — each typically between 4,000 to 8,000 troops — including a border unit.
“Peshmerga brigades didn’t fit a US brigade set,” Knights told Al-Monitor. “A lot of the German equipment went everywhere. Gucci German assault rifles got given to commanders and bodyguards.”
The US-led force has trained 26,000 peshmerga over the course of the anti-IS mission that began in 2014. Even though the funding stream appears to be in a winnowing process, the United States and the KRG remain engaged in high-level dialogues, with the peshmerga still playing an important role as the Pentagon aims to curb the influence of Iran-backed Shiite militias that are enmeshed in the Iraqi Security Forces.
In meetings in Washington in November, the head of the KRG’s Department of Foreign Relations called for the United States*to do more to encourage talks with Baghdad and keep tenuous supply lines open on the border, including the Fish Khabur crossing, a critical lifeline for the 2,000 US troops serving in Syria.
“We already have border guards,” Falah Mustafa told Al-Monitor in a November*interview. “Border guards are wearing Iraqi uniforms, they are on the payroll of the Iraqi government, they are getting instructions and directives from the Iraqi government in Baghdad.”
(Picure Credit: David B. Gleason)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Iraq launched a trilingual mobile application for iOS and Android to become the first ever UNDP Country Office to have such an application and one of a few within the UN community worldwide.
UNDP Iraq’s Communications Unit led the development process of this application with support on information technology from the Regional Hub.
The Unit explained:
“Out of over 37.2 million Iraqis, more than 30.2 million are mobile users*. The UNDP Iraq mobile application was developed not only to keep Iraqi users well informed of UNDP’s support to the people of Iraq, but also to reach out to a wider global audience.
“With its user-friendly design, the application is very informative in terms of highlighting UNDP’s work and impact as well as the country’s progress towards respective Sustainable Development Goals.“
The mobile application features news, impact stories, publications, a media library, infographs and visualized data in Arabic, Kurdish and English languages.*It*is now available for free download from App Store and Google Play.
(Source: UNDP)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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FYI
If anyone else sent their stuff to AACC/Iraq Embassy to get certified. The lady that was doing it at the Embassy quit/wasn't there to do it. So who knows how long it will take.
I assume I'm SOL for my shares now. Good thing I only did 5k and not 50.

By John Lee.
Chevron has reportedly announced that it had resumed drilling operations at the Sarta-3 well in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The US company temporarily suspended operations in October following the controversial independence referendum, which increased tensions between Baghdad and Erbil.
According to Kurdistan 24, it currently operates and holds an 80-percent contractor interest in two production-sharing contracts covering the Sarta and Qara Dagh blocks.
(Sources: Reuters, Kurdistan 24)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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By John Lee.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has promised to crack down on corruption, and says laws will protect nervous foreign investors.
He told CNBC:
“We are laying down all the legal framework … I think the worry is corruption, number one, which is hiding behind red tape and bureaucracy. We have established a higher committee which is headed by the prime minister and it has a follow up team to make sure to remove blocks as they are there because of the bureaucracy.
“I think this will be a huge bonus for companies; sometimes they are pressed to pay bribes or something like that. We want to keep away from this, we want every dollar which goes into investment or donation to serve the people, not to go to the pockets of corrupt people.“
Appearing confident despite the challenges ahead, he added:
“I think now that the process of engaging investors in Iraq, I am sure in the next few months will be the foundation of this. We’ve already appointed a committee. Next month is going to be a meeting with major investors to follow up … And I hope that after the election they’ll immediately start.”
See the full CNBC interview here.
(Source: CNBC)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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By John Lee.
Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi is to visit Turkey this week to discuss expanding cooperation in the oil and energy sector.
Among the topics for discussion will be the possible restarting of oil exports via the*Turkish port of Ceyhan (pictured), and the export the Iraqi oil “by SOMO company exclusively”.
He will also invite Turkish companies to participate in investment projects in the oil sector.
(Source: Ministry of Oil)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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Kirkuk Governorate Council has reportedly filed a complaint at the Iraqi Supreme Court against the federal government for taking unilateral steps on the governorate’s oil.
A press report on February 19 cited three moves that it said Baghdad has taken without consultation with local government: An agreement with British Petroleum (BP) to develop Kirkuk oil fields; efforts to export oil to Iran and Turkey; and exporting oil to Iran via tankers.
Though the report referred to these three steps as “contracts“, only the third relates to an agreement that is already being realised. The other moves remain in the initial stages.* The head of the Kurdish Fraternity List at Kirkuk Governorate Council, Muhammad Kamal, told press:
“In accordance with the federal constitution, in provinces that produce oil, there should be coordination with the local governments and no contracts should be signed without consultation with the local administrations”.*
Head of Kirkuk Governorate Council, Rebwar Talabani, stated that the federal government “does not listen to any articles of the constitution or laws“.* He said the majority at the council were hoping that “our demands take the form of a legal case against the Iraqi government“.
According to the report, the council has filed 13 complaints at the Supreme Court against the Iraqi government concerning “violations” by Iraqi security forces and the government since October.
It added that since the federal takeover, the people of Kirkuk have not benefited from the governorate’s oil wealth, whereas prior to the takeover local government was given 10m dollars per month by the Kurdistan Regional Government for exporting its oil.
(Source: GardaWorld)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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By John Lee.
An Iraqi government delegation is planning to visit Turkey to discuss environmental concerns over Turkey’s Ilisu Dam on the Tigris River.
Iraqi Water Resources Minister Hassan al-Janabi (pictured) recently commented:
“All regions of Iraq face the danger of water scarcity.”
The amount of water in key Iraqi rivers has reportedly fallen by at least 40 percent in recent decades due to erratic rainfall, and the construction of dams in neighbouring countries.
The Ministry of Water Resources has stressed that Iraq is “keen to maintain cooperation with neighbouring countries, including Turkey, in order to achieve mutual benefit for all the riparian countries on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers through fair and reasonable use and based on the principle of avoiding harm to any party.”
(Sources: Al Manar)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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By Alessandro Bacci.
Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.
On February 27-28, 2018, the C.W.C. Group, an energy and infrastructure conference, exhibition and training company, will organize in Berlin, Germany, the twelfth edition of Iraq Petroleum, which is one of the major events concerning Iraq’s oil and gas sector.
One of the main topics of Iraq Petroleum 2018 will be the development of Iraq’s natural gas reserves with the specific goal of strengthening energy-intensive industries to diversify the Iraqi economy.
In Iraq, natural gas might really be the key driver to develop additional industrial sectors. In fact, natural gas may be used for power generation (electricity), petrochemicals, fertilizers, and other heavy industries in which gas is the primary feedstock.
In this regard, some analysts might object that the development of these new industrial sectors would not really change the picture for Iraq because its economic development would still be too linked to the oil and gas sector—in practice Iraq’s economy would continue to be overaffected by the price of oil and gas.
This observation is by no means wrong, but it’s also true that, apart from increasing oil exports (and in this regard, it will be important to see how Iraq will deal in the future with OPEC’s quota restrictions) to improve its economic standing Iraq does not have many alternatives to developing its natural gas resources and then using them to add other industrial sectors to the economy.
Please click here to download the full report.
Alessandro Bacci is an independent energy consultant in relation to business strategy and corporate diplomacy (policy, government, and public affairs). Much of his activity is linked to the MENA region, an area where he lived for four years. Alessandro is now based in London, United Kingdom (www.alessandrobacci.com). A multilingual professional, Alessandro holds a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws from the University of Florence (Italy), a Master in Public Affairs from Sciences Po (France), and a Master in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (Singapore).****
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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By John Lee.
A sharp fall in the value of the Iranian rial has reportedly reduced the price of Iranian goods in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq by 30 percent, boosting demand.
According to Rudaw, trade between the Kurdistan Region and Iran amounted to $6 billion in 2016, falling to around $5.05 billion in 2017.
Tehran closed three border crossings with the Kurdistan Region at the request of Baghdad after September’s independence referendum, reopening them in early January.
More here from Rudaw.
(Source: Rudaw)
(Picture Credit: Tasnim, under Creative Commons licence)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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By John Lee.
A new section of Erbil’s largest road was reportedly opened on Monday.
The*five-kilometer stretch of the “120 Meter Road” will alleviate heavy traffic on the Erbil-Pirmam and Erbil-Koya roads, according to a report from Rudaw.
The Hemn Group has pledged to finish the next phase of the project near the Kirkuk road and another segment serving the Kirkuk-Mosul road by the end of the year, witht the entire road expected to be completed by the end of 2018.
More here from Rudaw.
(Source: Rudaw)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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Iraq has received the first batch of Russian-made T-90 battle tanks as part of a purchase agreement signed last year, according to an Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman.
“The first batch of Russian tanks arrived on February 15 at Umm Qasr Port – they have since been transported to Baghdad via the city of Basra”.
The delivery comes as part of a purchase agreement signed last year between Iraq and Russia for a total of 73 T-90s.
“The rest of the tanks will be delivered gradually,” the Defence Ministry source said, pointing out that the first batch of tanks would enter into service “in the coming days”.
(Source: GardaWorld)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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The ISX decided to move trading of 19 companies from the regular market to the non-regular market starting Mar. 1, 2018. If your wanting to buys or sell share this doesn't sound good.
At least for some it was due to the decrease in annual trading volume. Three of those banks traded today BNOI @ .56 (2 trades) BROI @.68 (9 trades) BASH @.31 (11 trades). It looks like they need to be active more on the ISX.
In contrast BBOB was @ .73 with (63 trades) 1/3 the total bank trades today.
Note:
“Suspend/ISC” companies are not trading due to ISC Instructions.
“Suspend/GA” companies are not trading due to General Assembly Meetings.
"(NR)": These are the companies which are trading in the Non-Regular market (in compliance with Iraq Securities Commission law numbered 132/9 on 20/12/2012). These companies were moved to the secondary market (non-regular) because of the decrease in their trading volume and the number of days that these companies are being traded for. Please note, according to the Regulations of the Secondary Market, in each trading session, the average share price will be calculated for each share. The maximum increase and decrease of +/-20% will be based on the average price in the previous session. The price should be valid during three effective trading sessions after the listing, and it will be free in the first trading session after capital increasing.

The ISX decided to move trading of 19 companies from the regular market to the non regular market
starting Mar. 1, 2018 due to the following reasons:
1) Due to not trading in 2016-2017: AL-Wiaam for Financial Investment (VWIF),
2) Due to the decrease in annual trading volume: National Bank of Iraq (BNOI), Credit Bank of Iraq (BROI), North Bank (BNOR),Union Bank of Iraq (BUOI), Ashur International Bank (BASH), Al-Bilad Islamic Bank (BLAD), Al-Khatem Telecoms (TZNI) and AHliya For Insurance (NAHF),
3) Due to less than 25 trading sessions: Economy Bank For Investment (BEFI), Dar es salam Investment Bank (BDSI) and Iraqi for General Transportation (SIGT),
4) Due to the decrease in all indicators: Al-Zawraa for Finanical Investment (VZAF) and Al -Khazer for Construction Materials (IKHC),
5) Due to being under CBI custody: Dijlah & Furat Bank for Development (BDFD) and Dar Al-Salam for Insurance (NDSA).

GardaWorld, a global leader in comprehensive security and risk management, has made its weekly security report available to Iraq Business News readers.
Prepared by GardaWorld’s Risk Analysis Team in Iraq, this essential report includes short- and medium-term outlooks on the security situation, reports and commentary on recent significant events, and a detailed overview of developments across the country.
Please click here to download the latest report free of charge.
For more information on how GardaWorld’s services can support your business in Iraq, please contact Daniel Matthews, Senior Director Iraq, at daniel.matthews@garda.com
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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Genel Energy plc has announced that it has received an override payment of $7.05 million from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The payment represents 4.5% of Tawke gross field revenues for the month of November 2017, as per the terms of the Receivable Settlement Agreement.*
Taken together with the monthly entitlement payments for Taq Taq and Tawke announced yesterday, Genel’s net share of payments relating to November 2017 exports totals $26.81 million.
(Source: Genel Energy)
Source: Iraq-BusinessNews.com.
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